CONCERT SAMPLER
Margo Timmins and Cowboy Junkies doing Lou Reed are among this week’s live music highlights,
Live music highlights for the week of March 16-22.
Joey Landreth As the frontman who pulls the strings in Winnipeg’s no-nonsense Bros. Landreth, Joey is the younger bro and an everyman guitar god, ripping off solos with casual ease. So his own debut record, Whiskey, (just out in January) leans heavy on the axe work. But it’s also a bit more focused in doling it out, while his songs roll deftly across the countryrock spectrum — anyone hip to Jason Isbell, say, should find much to like. While the band’s on hiatus following a long ride off their award-winning debut LP, he has taken to the road with mates from the early days: Meg Dolovich on bass and the brothers’ original drummer, Ryan Voth. Note the supper-hour set time in downhome surroundings, the better to get an early jump on a concert week heavy on superior rootsy offerings. (Thursday, Dakota, doors 6 p.m.)
Wilco Just when it looked as if they were fading into, if not the sunset, then at least a comfy studio chair, Jeff Tweedy & Co. dropped freewheeling, free-to-download record Star Wars in the middle of 2015 and found a bit of a second wind. Or perhaps a third or fourth, the Chicago band never having been content on lingering in the same spot for too long. Last year’s Wilco Schmilco followup was both bookend and sigh, a product of the same sessions that explored their more hushed side. The range, restlessness and artisanal expertise serves them well live, with a body of work that yields much in the revisiting. Kentucky folk artist Joan Shelley, with a Tweedy-produced album on the way, starts off the two-night stand beginning Wednesday the 15th. Pick of the week. (Wednesday and Thursday, Massey Hall, 7:30 p.m.)
The Staves Amid all the St. Patrick’s Day parties on Friday, it’s a meeting of pastoral England and mildly muscled Americana that gets the Sampler’s call, in the persons of the Watford trio of Emily, Camilla and Jessica Staveley-Taylor. If these three sisters’ cool harmonies and atmospheric guitar strumming don’t hit your sweet spot, perhaps you need something stronger than green beer. And being St. Paddy’s AND closing night after a month of cross-continental touring, there will be plenty of that kind of thing around. And FYI, harpist Mikaela Davis’s sumptuous pop songs are worth arriving early for. (Friday, Phoenix, doors 8 p.m.)
Andrew Collins Trio Collins is a musician of rare versatility and ambition, with a mandolin for all seasons — his trio’s 2016 record And It Was Good explores the seven days of the Creation, and for this show they’ll go back over it for the live-inconcert film version. With the Phantasmagoria String Quartet (because you can never have enough strings, no?), and as many extra instruments as they can fit around the stage. Mike Mezzatesta and James McEleney fill out the threesome who copped a Canadian Folk Music Award for their luscious journeys in bluegrass, classical and more on the record; that runs Collins’ personal total to seven of those particular honours, and sets things up here for a most warming weekend afternoon. (Sunday, Great Hall, doors 2:30 p.m.)
Trentemoller After first kicking off as a DJ and remixer around Copenhagen two decades ago, Denmark’s Anders Trentemoller has, after a fashion, been pursuing his original everyman’s dream of rock stardom, while staying true to his own roots. The big beats are still there, but the palette’s been loaded up with varying shades of indie and ambient, and he never turns down the pull of a good hook. His latest, Fixion, goes full-on (and almost too right-on-the-nose) into classic post-punk echo and dread — his touring band helps put sufficient meat on the bones to have no trouble filling this place up. (Tuesday, Danforth Music Hall, doors 7 p.m.)
Cowboy Junkies Indie label Latent Recordings marks 35 years with a little help from some of their deep well of artist friends over the next four “Latent Lounge” Wednesdays starting this evening, with the Junkies among the cast opening matters with a run through the Lou Reed songbook. Given the way Margo Timmins breathed new life into the old Velvets jam-out for one of the band’s early triumphs, they’ve certainly been cast to type. Add sets from Tom Wilson, both solo and then with his friends in the Lee Harvey Osmond band, and that’s a pretty deep night — you could do worse than having your next four hump nights sorted, actually, including a week from now when Timmins and her bandmates are down for a full set. (Wednesday, Monarch Tavern, doors 6:30 p.m.)